pasadena weekend

I went to Pasadena this weekend to visit Alyssa. Saturday can pretty much be summed up if you read Alyssa’s post on her web site (food, movie, bookstores, food, bingo, white russians, movie). At Auntie Em’s we both had these delicious open faced sandwiches. The sandwiches are the only food I forgot to photograph using my new phone’s camera. Alyssa got a bacon and egg one and I got a steak and egg one. The sandwiches were so big we each only ate half and tried to eat more but couldn’t. We couldn’t resist getting one of the softball size cupcakes though – we both chose red velet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They were delicious.

After a movie (The Notorious Bettie Page) and tromping around some used bookstores, we went to Bento-Ya. Bento-Ya most likely used to be housed in a walk-up Mexican restaurant. They had a walk up building and a few outdoor tables that were well etched with the past affections of then in love teenagers. Alyssa got a Chicken Teriyaki Bowl and some Tuna Rolls. I opted for the Shrimp Fry combo with egg rolls. The egg rolls were a bit too saucy inside for me – I’m used to the stuff inside staying in there and not dripping right on out after the first bite. My shrimp also tasty pretty greasy – I tasted more grease than shrimp. Boo hoo. It was still interesting though anyway. I don’t see a lot of walk up Japanese places.

On Sunday we headed to Zankou Chicken in celebration of us loving the song “Debra” by Beck. Looking at various lyrics sites, some list it saying “Zankou Chicken” and others list it as “This ain’t cooked chicken”. Zankou Chicken is more hilarious to me, no matter what he’s actually saying. In any case, we both got damn cheap chicken wraps. I got a roasted chicken wrap. When it flopped open in front of me, it looked like it had no sauce and just chicken and tomatoes. But before I took a bite, I noticed some kind of strange looking white sauce which turned out to be pretty tasty. Not bad for a meal that cost me less than four dollars. I didn’t eat the purple things though, which Alyssa thought was pickled beets. I don’t eat anything pickled.

We headed out to Amoeba Music after our fill of chicken. I had never been there before. It’s huge. I picked up “Live at Jittery Joe’s” by Jeff Mangum, singer of Neutral Milk Hotel. Afterwards we tried to go to a Japanese snack shop we saw the day before when we went to get Japanese food, but it was closed. We looked in a little used bookstore, but it was lame. Then we popped into a way overpriced open house for a condo. Later on we went to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner. The wait was long for a table, the wait was long for our food, but spaghetti is delicious. Mmm, I have leftovers to eat today for lunch. Yum.